Organizational Learning in Project-Based Companies: A Process Thinking Approach

Although a traditional project model is clearly useful for laying out the patterns of relationships surrounding a project, it does not provide the temporally embedded accounts that enable us to understand how organizational learning takes place. The process thinking perspective offers a means to solving this problem. This article provides an analysis of how different processes interact dynamically in order to benefit project-based companies' organizational learning. Two findings from this study are: (1) organizational learning is a dynamic concept that emphasizes the continually changing nature of a project-based company and (2) sensemaking and negotiation of meaning are ongoing processes in project-based companies.

[1]  K. Weick,et al.  Organizing and the Process of Sensemaking , 2005 .

[2]  Dennis A. Gioia,et al.  Sensemaking and sensegiving in strategic change initiation , 1991 .

[3]  K. Lewin.  Field theory in social science , 1951 .

[4]  M. Feldman.  Organizational Routines as a Source of Continuous Change , 2000 .

[5]  Kaj U. Koskinen.  Evaluation of tacit knowledge utilization in work units , 2003, J. Knowl. Manag..

[6]  Haridimos Tsoukas,et al.  REFINING COMMON SENSE: TYPES OF KNOWLEDGE IN MANAGEMENT STUDIES* , 1994 .

[7]  Ference Marton,et al.  Learning in the Learner's Perspective. III. Level of Difficulty Seen as a Relationship Between the Reader and the Text. No. 78. , 1979 .

[8]  A. Langley.  Process thinking in strategic organization , 2007 .

[9]  Dennis A. Gioia,et al.  Symbolism and Strategic Change in Academia: The Dynamics of Sensemaking and Influence , 1994 .

[10]  Vibha Gaba,et al.  Organizing Far from Equilibrium: Nonlinear Change in Organizational Fields , 2005, Organ. Sci..

[11]  H. Tsoukas,et al.  Introducing perspectives on process organization studies , 2010 .

[12]  A. Rogers.  What is the Difference?: A New Critique of Adult Learning and Teaching , 2003 .

[13]  Robert P. Hawkins,et al.  Advancing communication science : merging mass and interpersonal processes , 1988 .

[14]  E. Shils.  The Constitution Of Society , 1982 .

[15]  A. V. D. Ven.  SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDYING STRATEGY PROCESS: A RESEARCH NOTE , 1992 .

[16]  David Seidl,et al.  Organisational Identity and Self-Transformation: An Autopoietic Perspective , 2005 .

[17]  Robert Chia,et al.  On Organizational Becoming: Rethinking Organizational Change , 2002, Organ. Sci..

[19]  Philip Bromiley,et al.  Assumptions of Rationality and Equilibrium in Strategy Research: The Limits of Traditional Economic Analysis , 2003 .

[20]  Haridimos Tsoukas,et al.  Complex Thinking, Complex Practice: The Case for a Narrative Approach to Organizational Complexity , 2001 .

[21]  K. Weick.  FROM SENSEMAKING IN ORGANIZATIONS , 2021, The New Economic Sociology.

[22]  J. Ruiz Moreno.  [Organizational learning]. , 2001, Revista de enfermeria.

[23]  R. Gephart.  Crisis Sensemaking and the Public Inquiry , 2007 .

[24]  R. Cooper.  Process and Reality , 2014 .

[25]  Brent B. Allred,et al.  Enabling Knowledge Creation: How to unlock the Mystery of Tacit Knowledge and Release the Power of Innovation , 2001 .

[26]  S. Maitlis,et al.  Process, Sensemaking, and Organizing: An Introduction , 2010 .

[27]  Andrew D. Brown.  Making Sense of Inquiry Sensemaking , 2002 .

[28]  Jennifer Stromer-Galley,et al.  Interactivity-as-Product and Interactivity-as-Process , 2004, Inf. Soc..

[29]  D. Hofstadter,et al.  Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid , 1979 .

[30]  L. Clarke.  Mission Improbable: Using Fantasy Documents to Tame Disaster , 1999 .

[31]  Robert P. Gephart,et al.  Future‐oriented Sensemaking: Temporalities and Institutional Legitimation , 2010 .

[32]  S. Newell,et al.  Project-Based Learning and the Role of Learning Boundaries , 2004 .

[33]  Fay Sudweeks,et al.  Interactivity on the Nets , 1998 .

[34]  C. Peirce.  How to Make Our Ideas Clear , 2011, The Nature of Truth.

[35]  S. M. Kinsella.  Activity-Based Costing: Does it Warrant Inclusion in a Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide)? , 2002 .

[36]  Robert Chia,et al.  The First Organization Studies Summer Workshop: 'Theorizing Process in Organizational Research' , 2004 .

[37]  Patrick Dawson,et al.  Organizational change : a processual approach , 1994 .

[38]  Mustafa Emirbayer,et al.  What Is Agency?1 , 1998, American Journal of Sociology.

[39]  S. Maitlis.  The Social Processes of Organizational Sensemaking. , 2005 .

[40]  Anders Söderholm,et al.  Beyond Project Management: New Perspectives on the temporary – permanent dilemma , 2002 .

[41]  A. Pettigrew.  The Character and Significance of Strategy Process Research , 1992 .

[42]  Kaj U. Koskinen.  Autopoietic Knowledge Systems in Project-Based Companies , 2010 .

[43]  M. Shubik,et al.  A Behavioral Theory of the Firm. , 1964 .

[44]  Mustafa Emirbayer.  What Is Agency ? ' , 2008 .

[45]  Peter E.D. Love,et al.  Management of knowledge in project environments , 2003 .

[46]  T. Hernes.  Understanding Organization as Process: Theory for a Tangled World , 2007 .

[47]  Etienne Wenger,et al.  Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity , 1998 .

[48]  Kaj U. Koskinen.  Recursive view of the project-based companies' knowledge production , 2010, J. Knowl. Manag..

[49]  M. Dodgson.  Organizational Learning: A Review of Some Literatures , 1993 .

[50]  Frances J. Milliken,et al.  Challenger: Fine-Tuning the Odds Until Something Breaks , 1988 .

[51]  Robert Cheng Huat Chia.  A 'Rhizomic' Model of Organizational Change and Transformation: Perspective from a Metaphysics of Change , 1999 .

[52]  Barbara Czarniawska.  On Time, Space, and Action Nets , 2004 .

[53]  Alan Rogers,et al.  Learning in Adulthood: a comprehensive guide , 2001 .